(born in Bruck/Mur in 1954)
“Disruption”, 2012, sculpture of the work group “Performative Skulpturen”, acrylic, paint, edition of 5 examples, 58 x 58 x 60 cm

One example exhibited:
Erwin Wurm, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac/Paris, Pantin, 2013

Provenance:
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris
Private Collection, France

In the early 1990s Erwin Wurm began to develop a completely new form of artistic expression, his Performative Sculptures: „The deciding factor was the feeling that I was no longer close to my work, had moved even further away from it, because-like many artists of my generation-I had begun having things done. I would have an idea, make plans, but someone else would actually make the object. This entails an enormous danger, and that is of losing emotional intimacy and an artistic relationship with the work. At some point I became aware of where things were going and so I tried to backpedal. I endeavored to be physically involved with every sculpture, and it occurred to me that you can interpret „physically involved“ in any number of ways. You can use your hands or climb up on something, hit something. The physical aspect is important, the fact that I am interfering with an object that is just being made and forcing it into a shape of my own. I destroy or deform an object and as a result something new emerges-the performative sculpture.“
Erwin Wurm-Excerpt from the catalogue essay of Severin Dünser to the exhibition: Performative Skulpturen/Performative Sculptures/21er Haus, Vienna, 2017